JEFFREY BROWN ON THE INCREDIBLE CHANGE-BOTS

[MattBrady]

by Zachary Smith

This July, the publisher that brought you such critically-acclaimed books as Lost Girls, Box Office Poison and Owly, along with the cartoonist behind such heartbreaking true-life tales as Clumsy and Unlikely will team up to bring you…an action-packed book about transforming robots?

Yes, it’s Jeffrey Brown’s The Incredible Change-Bots, a new parody from Top Shelf Productions that promises to be beyond good, beyond evil…beyond your wildest imagination. We recently chatted with Brown about the book, the upcoming feature film that…might have inspired it, and of course, about those awesome toys and cartoons of the 1980s. Things got…silly.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW CONTAINS A TANGENT ABOUT GOBOTS AND ROCK LORDS. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Newsarama: Okay Jeff, what's Change-Bots about? Who's the audience you're aiming for?

Jeffrey Brown: Change-Bots is my tribute/nostalgic reverie of the Transformers and their ilk. I'm aiming for three audiences with this one - people who already like my comics, people who are really into the Transformers, and people who see the movie and don't know any better than to buy this book.

NRAMA: Transformers! My God, I never would have guessed. A cunning scheme, Brown. A cunning scheme.

Who are the Change-Bots, and what are their personalities like?

JB: The Change-Bots are a race of shape-changing robots. They're composed of two factions, the Awesomebots and Fantasticons. While you may think the Awesomebots would be largely noble and good and the Fantasticons would be evil and power hungry, overall all of the Change-Bots are a bit flawed – a little self involved, a little careless, and often cynical. Except Balls, who can incredible-change into a golf cart. He's kind of nice.

NRAMA: Who are some of the other individual Change-Bots, and do you have any favorites?

JB: The leader of the Awesomebots is BigRig, an orange semi-truck, naturally, and the leader of the Fantasticons is Shootertron. My favorites are Racey, a red car, and Rusty, a van. And Balls, the golf cart. I didn't end up with as much space for character development as I'd originally planned, but not all of the characters get killed off, so there's still the possibility I can come back and do a sequel.

NRAAM: Now, you've done superhero-type stuff before with Bighead, but this is a bit of a departure from your more realistic books. Why did you decide to do a story like this, aside from the tie-in with a certain major motion picture?

JB: I've had the idea for a while, at first inspired by growing up with Transformers toys, comics and cartoons and then thinking it'd be a fun idea to explore. When I found out the motion picture was coming out I figured I should just go ahead and do it, because it's the perfect time to piggyback on some of that movie hype.

NRAMA: Okay, ‘fess up: Do you consider yourself a TransFan?

JB: I don't think I'm considered a true fan - especially since midway through the book, I had to re-name a couple characters, after discovering there were obscure Transformers with the same names. D'oh. I did go out and get the movie, Season One of the cartoon, some of each comic (the old Marvel, the old UK, and the new ones from Dreamwave) for research and to get in the mood, so to speak. It also gave me an excuse to buy some of the new toys.

NRAMA: If only all projects required that kind of “research.” What was your favorite Transfomer?

JB: My favorite was Windcharger -I had the little mini toy, my first Transformers toy. Brought him to church and transformed him back and forth during many a sermon there.

NRAMA: Do you still collect Transformers, or have any of your toys from the 1980s?

JB: I sold all of my Transformers toys when I went off to college...needed beer
money.

NRAMA: (shakes head) Ohhhh, Jeff...robots in disguise in exchange for alcohol. Well, are you looking forward to the new Transformers movie? Can the combined forces of Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf surpass the 1986 epic that included "You've Got the Touch" and Orson Welles as a ravenous planet (not to mention Judd Nelson as Hot Rod)?

JB: I'm looking forward to it. I hope it's spectacular, and makes my little parody a big money-maker...I don't know though, the soundtrack from the ’86 film was pretty great. I had it on cassette and was listening to it on a school class trip. One of my friends asked me 'What's on that tape? Chee-choo-chu-chook-che-chee?' An embarrassing moment of nerdity on my part, and one of the inspirations for this book.

NRAMA: Now, I have to ask, because the Change-Bot design really reminds me of these characters…were you into the Gobots? Did you ever find it crazy that their names were like..."Cop-Tur" and he's a helicopter, “Cy-Kill" and he's a motorcycle…and so forth.

JB: I actually had Cy-Kill, though I was always much more into the Transformers. The Gobots had a great theme song too, though. Mighty robots, mighty vehicles...

NRAMA: Also, do you remember Rock Lords? They turned into rocks. I mean, that's a great power there. Transformers had "Autobots, transform and roll out!" Rock Lords had, "Rock Lords, transform and...lie there!"

JB: I don't remember the Rock Lords, but that almost sounds like an extremely high concept, subtle idea. Were they all boulders? There probably isn't a whole lot of variety of rocks you can change into when you're a robot.

NRAMA: Well, as you can see here they didn't all turn into boulders, one turned into a gold nugget…um, and there were weird little furry-pig things called "Narlies" they hung out with…

JB: Couldn't the Rock Lords just, you know, hide behind rocks or something instead of turning into them? At least the Transformers and Gobots change
into something useful!

NRAMA: True. It’s hard to understand the logic of the 1980s. On that note, what are some of the stranger shows and toys that you remember? Extra points if you recall Turbo Teen…

JB: I liked TurboTeen a lot. And PeeWee's Playhouse...all the good stuff had comics guys working on them, I guess? I liked M.A.S.K. a lot - with their dual mode vehicles, and each character having a special mask that did something different. And they had a base out in the desert. In the 80's every cartoon force had a base in the desert.

NRAMA: Now, getting serious again…you did that great video for Death Cab for Cutie’s “Your Heart is an Empty Room” for their "Plans" DVD. Can we expect to see more music videos in your future?

JB: Some day maybe, it'd have to be the right project...even though I didn't do the actual animation, the project ended up being a lot of work. It was my first animation project, so lots of learning and good to try out, and I like Death Cab a lot, so the project was well worth it. In the end I just really prefer drawing comics, it just seems more natural for me.

NRAMA: Finally, what's next after Change-Bots?

JB: I've finished a collection of autobiographical, short story comics that will come out next spring called Little Things and am starting a massive memoir of my high school/college/art school years and how I ended up being a cartoonist. I'm also going to start a regular series of 32-page comics for Top Shelf that will come out 3 or 4 times a year called Sulk. That'll include some autobiographical stories, more parodies, more Bighead stories and whatever other weird ideas I've got floating around. I've got the first 9 or 10 issues basically planned out.

For more Change-Bot action, check out the preview at Top Shelf’s web site. The Incredible Change-Bots comes out this July.

[Crump's Brother]

Oh my God, this sounds great! I love Brown's work and this sounds perfect for him. Will buy!

[amdin]

Oh my god I had a Rock Lord! I had Nuggit ... And very vaguely remember the show.

Anyway the Change-Bots looks great!

[davewhitaker]

Boooo! GoBots theme song link is broken!

[Spaz_Monkey]

this


looks


AWESOME!!!!!!


oh, and I've got Stan Bush's "The Touch" on regular rotation on my MP3 player.

[McEddard]

I love Jeffrey brown's work, this looks like alot of fun.

[smitch]

Originally Posted by amdin

Oh my god I had a Rock Lord! I had Nuggit ... And very vaguely remember the show.

Anyway the Change-Bots looks great!

LOL, you took the words out of my mouth. I remember my parents had just bought a new house, and the realtor bought Nuggit for me to kiss up. I was pretty darn happy!

[CitC]

I loved M.A.S.K. What was the cartoon with the three guys that wore special exo-skeletons and could have weapons of their choice beamed directly onto the suit from and orbiting satelite? What a great show.

[JoeZhang]

message removed by author.

[Joshua Elder]

Jeff has been talking about this for a long time (we work together), and I honestly can't wait. The Transformers filtered through JB's sensibility... the mind boggles.

[LaughingJak]

Originally Posted by amdin

Oh my god I had a Rock Lord! I had Nuggit ... And very vaguely remember the show.

Anyway the Change-Bots looks great!

I had been thinking 'what was that thing? a he-man figure that turned in to a rock? what was that...? I know I had it when I was a kid....'

Incredible, I thought I was the only one!

I am AMAZED.


And the Change-Bots look incredible. I've gotta pick that up!

[Lord Albion]

a Rock Lord thats what i had, it was a brown toy that turned into a cubic rock, i always thought it was just rubbish transformer

[Supreme Convoy]

I love the previews... I'm buying it!

[Ragnarokker]

Originally Posted by: CitC

"What was the cartoon with the three guys that wore special exo-skeletons and could have weapons of their choice beamed directly onto the suit from and orbiting satelite? What a great show."

That was the Centurions. Frickin' cool show. It was pretty much the closest we'll ever get to an old school OMAC tv show.

[MattBrady]

Links fixed.

MattB

[amdin]

Originally Posted by Ragnarokker

Originally Posted by: CitC


That was the Centurions. Frickin' cool show. It was pretty much the closest we'll ever get to an old school OMAC tv show.

One of the GREATEST toy ever! I had Ace McCloud (think that was his name) and somehow managed to get my parents to by all the exo-suits. Freakin' fantastic toy!

And it makes me feel so much better that I wasn't the only one with a Rock Lord. He never did fit in with the rest of my Transformers ...

[Squashua]

I think He-Man had the Rock Lords.

Or he had something like that.

Rock-kon and Stone-Dar.

OMG. I need to lie down and die now.

- - - -

The best use of "You got the Touch" was as sung by Mark Walburg during "Boogie Nights".

There, I think I've redeemed myself now.

[CitC]

Centurions - ha

http://youtube.com/watch?v=szjcCB8m3G8

[BlueThunderArmy]

Centurions was awesome-rific. MASK too. Though for the longest time I thought they were asking for the 'dad' on (the latest case).

[Zenstrive]

Why do great things always spawn iditotic parody like this? This is clearly riding on the prophesized BANG that comes on the fourth of july

[TheGrayHulk]

I think I've made this exact comic when I was 8 years old in 1987!
Too bad I didn't make any money with it!

Oh, and The Challenge of the Gobots RULED!!

[TheGrayHulk]

Oh here's a rock lord.

[king kahn]

Originally Posted by Squashua

I think He-Man had the Rock Lords.

Or he had something like that.

Rock-kon and Stone-Dar.

OMG. I need to lie down and die now.

- - - -

The best use of "You got the Touch" was as sung by Mark Walburg during "Boogie Nights".

There, I think I've redeemed myself now.

nope rock lords were a go-bot spin off. i LOVED THEM!! he-man did indeed have two characters that went by those names. they also had meteorbs. meteors that changed into dif animals and such....yes...im a nerd

[coy_dog0]

My favourite childhood toy, parodied by my favourite adulthood cartoonist...the planets are alligned.

mike-EL

www.comicbooksyndicate.com

[erudite]

wasnt Centurions also designed by Jack Kirby for hanna barbera/Kenner? I seem to remeber seeing model sheets from the King on these years ago.